Broken Hallelujah
by k-girloftherings
Summary: Rose’s pain after the events in The Girl in The Fireplace, drive her to delve into her past, and dig up a piece of her history she thought lay dead. [TenRose]
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Broken Hallelujah

**Author: **Katherine

**Rating: **K+ (it's pretty tame)

**Characters: **Rose Tyler, Tenth Doctor, Mickey Smith

**Set: **After episode 4 – _The Girl in the Fireplace _(yes, that's right, it's another GItF fix-it fic – please don't hate me for it.)

**Spoilers:** Minor spoilers for episode 4 – _The Girl in the Fireplace_

**Disclaimer: **I can't believe people still write these. Trust me – if I owned Doctor Who, you'd know!

**Summary: **(God I hate these). Rose's pain after the events in The Girl in The Fireplace, drive her to delve into her past, and dig up a piece of her history she thought lay dead.

**Authors Note: **OK, now I know this is gonna sound like it's a song fic, but it's really not. This song only really comes into play in this first chapter, but it is important to pay attention to the lyrics, in particular the second verse.

**Acknowledgments: **Credit, thanks, love and praise all go to the wonderful Luna Lovegood5 for her beautiful beta work with this story. Mwa!!

Rose had been strangely quiet ever since they left that 52nd century spaceship. He was not used to the dulling silence that seemed to hang all through the TARDIS. She had left him alone with his thoughts to show Mickey around, but that had been over two hours ago. Since then he had seen Mickey at least twice by himself - once on his way to the kitchen, and the other time in the console room, about an hour after Rose and him had left, where Mickey had perched himself on the old chair and begun reading some sort of magazine which he could only describe as tedious to the point of idiocy, though he was not sure why that surprised him. The Doctor was missing Rose's company.

After walking down endless corridors for what seemed to be an age, the Doctor was ready to give up looking for her, and just let Rose find him when she was ready. I mean, its not like he wasn't able to be without her for a couple of hours. He was a big boy. But just as he was turning back towards the console room, he noticed that the regular hum of the TARDIS was not the only sound reaching his ears. There was a soft and beautiful yet haunting seemingly emanating from somewhere further down the corridor he was currently in.

Following the sound, the Doctor finally a reached a door that recognised, however had not seen for many years. The rooms in his ship were numerous to the extent of being uncountable, and it would not surprise him if one day he discovered a room that he had no idea even existed. The sound was most definitely coming from this particular room and although it was now stronger, the sound was still unidentifiable. The Doctor curled his slender fingers around the door handle, and quietly pushed the door open only wide enough to allow him to peer inside the room. What he saw was not at all what he had expected.

He had realised when he reached the door that this was the TARDIS's equivalent of a music room. This was where he stored any and all types of instruments or music that he happened to pick up on his travels. This was where he was sure the TARDIS would have put the Chrylt from Van Statten's museum. In the centre of the room stood an incredible Grand Piano, white and rustic, but able to give a beautiful sound. And there, sitting at the piano, was none other than Rose. There was no music on the piano's music stand, but Rose's fingers deftly caressed the keys as if she knew the notes by heart, producing a beautiful, melodic harmony, soft and haunting, that filled his soul and calmed his mind.

Rose's posture seemed relaxed, but her features were hard and anxious, as if something was troubling her and she was trying to keep it in. Her fingers were delicate on the keys, and she didn't slip, not once. The music was flawless and it was her doing.

And then suddenly, her mouth opened and she began to sing. The Doctor was immediately blown away. At first, her voice was soft and careful, sort of unsure but still melodically correct. Slowly, though, her voice grew, and it blossomed into the most beautiful sound the Doctor had ever heard. Rose's voice was strong and pure, and she seemed to twist the notes into a melody within a melody, creating an incredible toned effect within the original song. Her voice, along with her piano playing, was also beautiful and evocative, and it twisted itself around his heart (or hearts as the case may be), changing their rhythm to fit with the music she was playing.

Slowly, the Doctor began to notice the lyrics flowing from Rose's mouth. They were vaguely familiar but he couldn't pinpoint them. There was so much music in Earth's history, and this song could be from any time period at all.

_I heard there was a secret chord_

_That David played and it pleased the lord_

_But you don't really care for music do you?_

_Well it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth_

_The minor fall and the major lift_

_The baffled king composing hallelujah_

_Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelu-uuu-uu-jah…._

_Well, your faith was strong but you needed proof_

_You saw her bathing on the roof_

_Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you_

_She tied you to her kitchen chair_

_She broke your throne and she cut your hair_

_And from your lips she drew the hallelujah_

It was at this point in the song that Rose stopped. The tension and terrible sadness had been building in her face since the beginning of this verse, and now it manifested itself in a choked sob that erupted from her throat. Her chin trembled and a lone tear slid its path down her cheek, leaving behind an outline of pain somewhat resembling a snail trail. The Doctor's face contorted into a mixture of emotions – pain, compassion, confusion – this was completely unexpected. Why was his Rose so upset? But still he waited by the door, a little too afraid to make his presence known and to go to her and find the source of her hurt. Even after four hundred years of travelling with humans, he was still unsure of how to deal with this sort of situation.

So he waited and watched as she composed herself and continued playing and singing – the sound a little tighter now, but still haunting, and still completely and spell-bindingly beautiful.

_Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelu-uuu-uu-jah…._

_Baby, I've been here before_

_I've seen this room and I've walked this floor_

_I used to live alone before I knew you_

_I've seen your flag on the marble arch_

_But love is not a victory march_

_It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah_

_Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelu-uuu-uu-jah…._

_Well, there was a time when you let me know_

_What's really going on below_

_But now you never show that to me, do you?_

The tears now flowed freely down her face, each creating their own fine trail of pain. Rose's face was like a map of sorrow, with lines intersecting and joining and jumbling and weaving together. However, she pressed on, the small signs of stress in her voice simply adding to the pure, raw emotion in her song. Rose continued to unknowingly cast her spell upon the Doctor's soul.

_Remember when I moved in you_

_And the holy dove was moving too,_

_And every breath we drew was hallelujah._

_Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelu-uuu-uu-jah…._

_Well, maybe there's a god above,_

_But all I've ever learned from love_

_Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you._

_It's not a cry that you hear at night_

_And it's not somebody who's seen the light_

_It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah._

_Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelu-uuu-uu-jah…._

She held on this last note as if she was holding onto her life, stretching the sound until she drew back nearly gasping for breath. There was a tiny gap of silence where nothing happened, like the calm before the storm, like when all the birds that have been chirping and screeching, as they do before the rain comes, suddenly stop, and there is just a few seconds of complete silence, before the rain finally buckets down and drowns out any other sound that might arise.

Rose's silence did not even span ten seconds, but it was a curious period for the Doctor, as he contemplated leaving versus waiting and watching her a while longer. However, he barely had time to make a decision; Rose's face tightened before he knew what to do. A wrenching cry made its way up her throat, and, the next thing the Doctor knew, she was sobbing uncontrollably over the piano.

The Doctors pain must have been close to mirroring Rose's in that moment. It killed him to see her in so much anguish, and he wanted desperately to comfort her, to hold her and to tell her that it would all be alright, whatever was wrong. But his feet would not move. He remained glued to the spot and found that he really could not work up the courage to go to her. So he turned away. He walked back down the corridor, disgusted by his own lack of resolve and kept walking until the length of the TARDIS corridors drowned out the sound of Rose's pain.

It was here that he slid down one of the walls until he was sitting on the grated floor. Nothing he could think of could explain Rose's pain. I mean, obviously they had that thing on the spaceship, but he'd come back and everything had been OK again, hadn't it? He was at a loss for an explanation, for once in his life, so he decided to go to someone else who might have another idea. It was hard to believe that he might be asking Mickey the Idiot for advice, but when it came to Rose, he was willing to try anything.

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Comments are love!

P.S. Did anyone clue in on the second verse of the song?


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**A/N: I must say a big thank-you to everyone who reviewed! It means so much to me that you took the time to tell me how you enjoyed the story. Once again, a big thank-you to the beautiful Luna Lovegood5 for her wonderful beta work!!**

"Mickety-Mick-Mick-Mickey! How ya doing?" The Doctor's attempt at sounding laid back and relaxed was failing miserably. "You know I love what you've done with your hair." And getting worse by the second. Mickey eyed him with tense confusion.

"Are you still drunk?"

"What? No, NO! No no no, no no no. Course not."

"Right." Mickey went back to reading his…. Well, whatever it was.

"I didn't know Rose sang." There we go. Blunt. To the point. That was easy! Well, sort of.

Mickey visibly tensed as his gaze snapped up to take in the Doctor's expression. His reply was clipped but vaguely nervous. "She doesn't." He went back to reading, or pretending to read.

"No really, she does. I saw her, just a minute ago," he cocked his head back to the door. "back there. Definitely singing."

"Nah, you must of got it wrong." His voice sounded confident and laid back, but his posture and his eyes gave away his worry. "Trust me, she doesn't."

"Um, no, I think when I saw Rose sitting at a piano, playing and singing, that was really what I saw…"

Mickey's eyes flashed back at the Doctor, but this time he was confused and surprised, as opposed to tense and closed off. He seemed to be paying more attention to what the Doctor was saying. "Are you sure?"

Talking to Mickey was like talking to a rock, except thicker. "Yeah." This was exasperating.

Mickey sighed and sank back into the chair he was in, shutting whatever he was 'reading'. "Wow."

"What? What's wow?"

"Well, God… Rose ain't sung in years. Three if ya wanna be exact."

"What do you mean, 'ain't sung in years'? Don't be ridiculous. Everybody sings. In the shower, making breakfast, fixing the trans-temporal adjuster on the spatio-hyperlink… or maybe that's just me? How do you know she hasn't sung?"

"Trust me. She hasn't sung." Off the Doctor's expression, he elaborated: "It's a long story."

"Then tell me."

"I can't."

"Why not?" The Doctor knew he was beginning to sound like a petulant child, but getting information out of Mickey Smith was like getting blood out of a stone.

"It's Rose's story."

"But you know it."

"Well, yeah. But she'd kill me if I told someone. And I don't mean she'd get pissed, stalk off to her room and get over it by the next day. I mean she'd probably guilt me into suicide just by looking at me."

"Oh, come on Mickey. I'm sure she only meant that as a 'Don't go round telling everyone you meet' sort of a thing. More like a guideline than a rule. You know me, Mickey. I only want what's best for Rose." This was true. Very true. If this little story Mickey was keeping to himself held to key to Rose's unhappiness, and an explanation for what he had seen less than half an hour ago, then he had to find out what it was. He cared for Rose far too much to not know what was going on. Seeing her crying before had torn a hole in his heart. Normally he couldn't stand emotional companions, but Rose was different. She didn't do that sort of thing unless there was a real problem. He gave Mickey his best 'You can trust me' eyes. It worked.

"If you tell Rose that I told you, then I am letting her kill you first."

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The Doctor ran a hand down his face. "Rassilion."

"Yeah."

"You mean…." He wasn't sure what to say. This was a new experience for him. He was never speechless. The whole of the English vocabulary at his feet, and he can't find the words to express how he is feeling.

"Uh huh."

"Crap."

"Yeah."

"I had no idea." And that was saying something. If anyone had asked, the Doctor would have prided himself on being the sole person who knew Rose the best. Turns out he hardly knows anything about her.

"I know."

"How the hell could Rose ever get over something like that?"

"I don't know. It took her a while, but she got there. That's Rose. She's strong. She threw herself into work, pretending everything was normal, when of course we all knew it wasn't. But I think she dealt with it quietly. Sometimes Jackie or I'd walk past her bedroom at night an' we'd hear her crying to herself. But that was just her way of coping. Eventually there was no more crying and she began to become herself again." Mickey's expression was subdued and thoughtful. The Doctor's was shocked – outraged, even.

"But how could someone do something like that to her?" Rose, his beautiful Rose, who'd never hurt a sole. Why would anyone want to hurt her?

"I ain't got a clue. I thought the exact same thing when she told me. And the problem was that there was no proof. Nothin'. There was no possible way to charge him. So he jus' got off."

"I have to see Rose."

Mickey's hand lashed out and grabbed the Doctor's wrist before he could move too far. "Don't you dare! You promised you wouldn't say anything!" Mickey looked scared and guilty at the same time. It was obvious he was beginning to regret telling the Doctor.

"Don't worry. I won't tell Rose you told me anything. I swear."

Mickey reluctantly let go of his wrist. "Remember what I said though. You let on that I told you, and I'll tell Jackie that you abandoned her daughter on a 51st century spaceship this morning."

The Doctor nodded his understanding and made for the door.

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**So?? grins nervously Good??? **

**P.S. Cookies for anyone who can guess where this story is going.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**A/N: Apologies all round for the delay of this chapter. My muse ran away with the Doctor in his TARDIS and refused to come home when I called him. Once again, a magnificent thanks to the gorgeous Luna Lovegood5 for beta-ing this chapter, and for putting up with my endless calls for help!! ****♥**

**Enjoy….**

He knocked tentatively on her door. She hadn't been in the music room, so this was the next most logical place to try. His conversation with Mickey was still ringing in his ears, and his need to speak to Rose was stronger than ever. He had almost sprinted down the corridor to her room, with this strange thought in his head that maybe the quicker he got there, the more easily he'd be able to sort the problem out.

"Rose?"

A muffled acknowledgement made its way to his ears. He pushed the door open and slipped into the room.

She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, with bobby pins in her mouth, elastic bands on her wrists, a small hand mirror on the covers next to her, and a half plaited bunch of hair in her hands. She quickly finished one side of her hair and removed the bobby pins from her mouth, turning to look at him as he approached her.

"Yeah?" She seemed perfectly laid back, friendly and relaxed, and it put him off his stride. Barely an hour ago she had been hunched over a piano, sobbing her heart out, and yet here she was, acting like the Rose he knew and lov……. anyway….. The thought occurred to him that she was better at hiding her emotions these days, a perfected mask sliding into place over her face whenever the need arose. He'd taught her too well.

"Oh, um, I was just…looking for you." His tone was still confused after finding her so calm, and he frowned at his lack of a good thing to say.

"Uh huh." She was unfazed. The Doctor had to remind himself that Rose didn't know he had seen her singing, nor did she know that Mickey had let her secret slip.

"I, um…yeah. Found you, then." His eyes kept switching from one side of the room to the other, as if he was feeling uncomfortable and searching for something to say.

Confusion crept into her features. "Yeah…" It was a slow yeah. The kind intended for people who were intellectually challenged. He didn't take kindly to the suggestion.

"I heard you singing. Before. In the music room." She had begun plaiting the other side of her hair, but now she stopped dead. She visibly tensed, and maintained her gaze on the bed covers. "I didn't realize you sang." Still she remained silent and motionless.

The Doctor wasn't sure whether to push the subject or not. Rose was clearly uncomfortable, but he was so desperate to help her, he tried one more time to get through to her. "It was beautiful." That got a response. She whipped around to face him.

"It was nothing. Forget about it." Her attention turned back to her hair.

"Are you sure it's nothing?"

"Yes." He could already tell that he was pushing this too far, but he couldn't stop himself from saying the next thing.

"The way you cried afterwards didn't seem like nothing."

"I SAID, IT WAS NOTHING, ALRIGHT!" She screamed at him. She actually screamed. In all the time the Doctor had known Rose Tyler, she had never once screamed _at_ him like that. She had screamed for him when she was in danger and she needed rescuing, she had screamed when he chased her around the TARDIS with a dead spider after learning of her fear of them, but she had never screamed _at_ him like she did just then. Her eyes were back on his face, veritable daggers shooting from them.

There was silence in the room. Rose was still, except for her heaving chest, and the Doctor was stunned into a statue-like position at the foot of her bed.

She turned away from him again. "I'm sorry." Her voice was a whisper, but it was packed full of heartbreaking emotion. The Doctor walked round to the side of her bed and sat down. He turned to her hunched frame and extended an arm towards her face, catching her chin with his fingers and tilting it up from its protected position on her chest and around towards him. As he finally caught sight of her face, a tear slid its way down her cheek and landed on his hand.

"Tell me what's wrong. Please."

There was a massive silence between his plea, and what she said next. The Doctor could tell that she was weighing her words, trying to decide what was the best thing to say next. He didn't push her. Not like he had before. He gave her all the time she needed, which ended up being a while, and so he was therefore totally unprepared for what she would say next.

"I...I just…I don't know whether I trust you anymore."


End file.
